Sidney,
I hope you’re right. One of the few good things Shinzo Abe did was improve relations a bit with China and South Korea by visiting them before anywhere else and refraining from visiting Yasukuni.
There is indeed some bad blood between Japan and China, but I think it’s more of a general mistrust than something specifically caused by any specific incident or incidents. In other words, hearing of contaminated Chinese food being shipped to Japan confirms popular Japanese doubts about, even prejudice against China.
For anything related to WWII, most Japanese people seem to just think “enough already,” although the percentage of those who say, in polls, that the Japanese government should issue new apologies is, at times, surprisingly high.
You’re absolutely right, though, that Fukuda is more dovish than his predecessors or opponents. Unfortunately, he has already set up all but three faction heads in Ministerial posts and is beset by such massive domestic issues that it will be hard for him to spend much time on foreign affairs, especially as he’s widely seen as a caretaker Prime Minister, whose main job is to repair the LDP’s image in time for a general election, possibly less than a year away.
